Hollinger Corp. 



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HE RED TRIANGLE 



IN THE 



WAR ZONE 



By EDWARD MARSHALL 



VERY likely you do not know what I mean by the Red Triangle. There 
is not a British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, 
French or Belgian soldier who is not familiar with it. And all these 
forces see it constantly. It does not mean cant, hypocrisy, holy Joes, or 
ceremony; it does mean helpfulness, cleanliness of mind at all times and of body 
when that may be, comfort for the soul at any rate, good fellowship, good 
sense. 

That doesn't sound much like the usual list of things connected with the 
work of missionaries. But it is a very partial and imperfect list of what the 
Red Triangle means in the trenches of this war, in the quieter lands behind 
the firing line, and in every city of the allied fighting nations where soldiers 
of the British Empire congregate. The Red Triangle is the sign which says: 
"Here is to be found a representative of the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion." 

The organization has been one of the really great influences of the war 
zone. It has done more to keep the soldiers clean and healthy than have the 




sanitary regulations; it has done more to keep them happy than any other 
thing. 

Beneficently it has reached even across the Channel, out of the fighting 
area into the homeland, to help wives and sweethearts, mothers, fathers and 
other anxious relatives of loved and perilled ones, for it has been the influence 
which has kept the men full of the thought of home, not only furnishing them 
with pens and pencils, paper pads and envelopes, which they scarcely can carry 
with them in this intense warfare, but inducing them to write home to the 
"folks in blighty." In this war it has been a sweetening and wholesome influ- 
ence of the sort that no war ever knew before. It has been truly wonderful. 

Red Triangle Huts in the Danger Zone at the Front 

Go to the front where the land has been ploughed up by shellfire and 
just back of the danger zone, often indeed within reach of the enemy shells, 
you'll find the Red Triangle huts. More than a dozen have been so near that 
they have been destroyed by enemy artillery. Go to the ports of embarkation and 
of debarkation and you'll find Red Triangle huts. They do marvellous work. 
Go to the cities where the lonely soldiers go on leave and the Red Triangle will 
meet your eye at intervals along the busy streets; and at every railway station 
guides will be found ready to see to it that the wandering soldier learns the way 
to friends. Very likely they'll be new friends, but they will be friends. 

Take London, for example. It is more a soldier city than New York 
will be, no matter how completely the United States joins in the war, for it 
is more really the metropolis and centre of the British Empire than New York 
ever can be of the United States. The Young Men's Christian Association has 
been the absolute salvation in material and comfortable as well as spiritual 
ways of soldiers here ever since the war began. 

It has been the guide the counsellor and friend of men on leave, and men 
on leave need guidance and kind counsel more than most people realize. At 
many of the big terminals there are sleeping huts. In London there are a 
score in which men can find beds. They can accommodate thousands of men 
in London every night. The huts are never closed. A bath or a meal can 
be had at any hour of day or night. 

The other day I went up to the Young Men's Christian Association head- 
quarters in London and there found the genius who has organized the whole war 
work, found him, in khaki, a uniform specially prescribed for him by the War 
Office, for Britain recognizes the Young Men's Christian Association as com- 
pletely as it recognizes the Flying Corps or the Royal Artillery as a necessity 
of the proper conduct of this war. Many times that khaki that he wears has 
been in the war zone. Indeed I was in luck to find it out of the war zone. His 
name is A. K. Yapp. 

Yapp is an organizing genius. He is self-effacing. He is of a heart so 
kindly and so big that there is room in it for every man who fights this good 
fight for civilization, be he private or commander, sick or well, sober or blind 
drunk. Yapp never criticises. Yapp hustles when he finds things going wrong 
and helps toward their correction, always with a very kindly grin. 

Material Aid for the Men Gomes First 

I should like to tell the story of this plain, unemotional man's adventures 
in his work of helpfulness. It would be as really dramatic as that of any man 

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importantly concerned with the great war. But I haven't space for it. And 
besides he wouldn't like it. 

"Don't worry about religion," Yapp said to me almost at once after I had 
begun to question him. "Religion is all right. It is the strongest thing in all 
the world. It can look after itself. Think about the actual work of actually 
helping actual men. Don't theorize, work. 

"Help men materially. You can't help them spiritually if you don't. 

"A hungry man is a bad man to whom to suggest prayer. To tell a foolish 
soldier who has drunk too much that he ought to go to church instead of to 
the public house is waste of breath. Help him. Then he'll be all right. See 
to it that he has a chance. If he has a chance he won't go wrong. 

"The British fighters in this war are of the right sort. Your soldiers in 
this war will be of the right sort. Give them an opportunity and they will be 
as morally clean as they have proved themselves a thousand times to be heroic. 
That's what we try to do. We try to give the fighting man a chance. 

"Of course the public must finance the work. Why shouldn't it? For 
whom are the soldiers working under such a strain as men in normal life never 
can know? For the public. Who benefits by the soldier's work and strain 
and risk, who gains by his health, who loses by his sickness and woimds, by his 
death? The public. The Red Triangle exists for the soldier and there is every 
reason, therefore, why the public should help it along. 

"But the public in Great Britain by no means pays for all of the Red 
Triangles or Y. M. C. A. war time activities. They are financed in two ways. 
First, the general public gives what it will, and in the British Empire as a 
whole it has been most generous, for the value of the Y. M. C. A. work has 
been appreciated by the public after it has been reported upon favorably by 
the military authorities. Second, the Y. M. C. A. itself has paid much — most 
indeed. 



Soldiers Help to Pay Cost of the Enterprise 

"It does a certain amount of trading, primarily to help the men, but never- 
theless at a profit, since the Young Men's Christian Association is not allowed 
to undersell regimental canteens. Its customers are told frankly that they help 
the work along by buying their refreshments at and using the accommodation 
of the huts. They remain immense gainers by this, because the greater part of 
the service at the institutions is performed at low cost, and this with wholesale 
buying enables the Young Men's Christian Association to offer food and accom- 
modations far above the market quality at far less than the market price. 

"The men have shown immense appreciation of the public's generosity, 
since for every pound ($5) the public has given, the men have spent 10 shil- 
lings, or half a pound, of their own money. This makes the drain upon the 
public no more than fair, for while the men are paid for their services as 



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The 




Motor Kitchen 
in France 




soldiers, they are paid comparatively little. And every penny which comes in 
above actual expenditures is spent upon the maintenance and extension of the 
work. Hundreds of pounds are spent upon free hot drinks in dugouts in the 
firing line, in providing refreshment for wounded men crossing back to the 
field hospitals, in concerts, lectures, games, literature. 

"The work, as it has been found wisest to organize it here, is divided into 
several sections. 

"First, there is the section which deals with the soldier and sailor at train- 
ing camps and with the actual fighting men at the front. 

"Second, there are the thousands to be looked after who are at the front 
neither by sea nor upon land, but nevertheless are fighting for their country. 
Among the most important of these are the workers in the munition areas. 

"The Y. M. C. A. work among the munition workers is very important 
and chiefly consists of supplying them with refreshments. Here the organi- 
zation gets much help from the manufacturers themselves, for the Govern- 



ment allows them to equip for Y. M. C. A. work out of excess profits which 
otherwise would go to the State in a very large degree. 

"Third, a growing effort is being made to be of use to young men about 
to go into the army. These include principally boys of 16 or 17. We think 
nothing could be more vital to the nation's interests than such work as this. 

Lesson in War Relief of Value to America 

"Fourth, there is the work done in the huts in London and elsewhere, far 
from the firing line, but where soldiers upon leave or special duty are numer- 
ous. We feel that this work has been of especial value in London. 

"Fifth, there is the work of the organization in hospitals and convalescent 
camps. 

"With America going into the war there will be almost at once an oppor- 
tunity for almost all the work which I have indicated, except perhaps that 
which we do at the front, and when the United States sends over its expe- 
ditionary force that work will be of as much value to her soldiery as it has 
been to ours. 

"This work so far has been principally done among the British soldiers 
at the front and in England. But recently we have been asked by France to 
set up experimental work in her munition factories. 

"Nor is this request from France the only especially gratifying episode 
which recently has occurred. When the Indian troops first appeared on the 
firing line we were refused permission to work among them on the ground that 
we might exercise some influence contrary to their religious faith. 

"Finally we were admitted on the ground that our work was not to be 
propagandist at all. We did not even wear the letters 'Y. M. C. A.' on our 
badges. What we were able to do was nothing less than wonderful, although, 
of course, we absolutely kept our pledges. And the Roman Catholics are en- 
thusiastic now also, as are the Jews. In my mail this morning 1 found a check 
for $500 from a Jew. 

"The initial difficulty with us, and I should think the same thing likely 
to be true in the United States, was that from 90 to 95 per cent, of the young 
men on whom we ordinarily would have relied for the supply of ^vorkers were 
not only eligible but eager for military service. We were left with only the 
lame, the halt and the blind, so to speak, and those beyond the military age. 
In this regard we were fortunate in having the active sympathy both of Queen 
Mary and Queen Alexandra, as well as that of several others of the royal 
blood. 

"The president of the Women's Side is Princess Victoria of Schleswig- 
Holstein. At the present minute not less than 23,000 women are enrolled under 
her. Most of them are volunteers and their work is beyond all praise. 

Branches in Mesopotamia and India Also 

"Each of the self-governing British colonies has developed the effort to a 
high degree and great things are being accomplished in the dependencies. 
From India men have come to work not only among the native troops in Eng- 
land and France but have gone for similar work to Mesopotamia and East 
Africa. It is interesting to note that E. C. Carter, an American, has been at 
the head of the work in India, and is now serving at the headquarteis in 
London. 

5 



"Already we have one branch in the actual Holy land. Some of the best 
work in Egpyt has been done by W. Jessop, who had his training at Wash- 
ington, D. C. An American helper in religious work who has shown great 
ability is Dr. Sherwood Eddy. 

"Four hundred and twenty-eight Y. M. C. A. branches have been estab- 
lished in France and Flanders for work with the troops, some of them being 
housed in cellars and ruined houses, some of them even nearer to the firing 
line being operated in dugouts actually under shell fire. 

"They never fail to follow an advance without delay. The day after 
Bapaume was occupied a Y. M. C. A. man appeared among the troops there, 
accompanied by a mule laden with cakes and other supplies. A Y. M. C. A. is 
in full operation in Bagdad, and others are doing fine work at Salonica, Malta 
and elsewhere. 

Discharged Soldiers Are Assisted to Get Along 

"We have one big branch in London devised for the especial purpose of 
helping discharged men to keep from getting down at the heel. We are now 
in negotiation for a place at which an especial effort will be made to assist 
those discharged men whose wounds have handicapped them badly. It is a 
bright, big estate, on which workshops will be established. 

"Already we are operating a small farm for men who need sanitarium 
treatment and who at the same time get training in gardening and poultry 
farming, and we are just taking over a little temperance inn in Lancashire, 
where badly handicapped men may remain after the war, doing what they can 
and continually learning to do more. We hope to plant similar institutions 
in many other places. In London we are now engaged in the process of taking 
charge of Giro's, which used to be a notorious night club. 

"In another place we are offered 850 bungalows on 87 acres of land, espe- 
cially planned and organized so as to help wounded men to futures of comfort 
and content and independence after the war. 

"The work, I think, has been successful because it was started right away 
and with the thought that it must meet all of the abnormal conditions of the 
situation. We did not allow tradition to hamper us at all. 

"We made new rules. The huts everywhere are big enough, they are well 
constructed and planned and they are ably managed. So far as we have been 
able to make them they have produced exactly what the soldiers have needed 
most and they have been administered upon the broadest lines we could devise. 

"Go through them all and you will fail to find a single set of rules 
posted on the walls. Not even a 'No Swearing' sign appears in any of our 
huts. The men need no posted rules. They always respect the property and the 
idea. Wc take this to be a guarantee of the permanence of the good accom- 
plished. 

"I should think your work in America might begin exactly at the point 
which oars has reached after all these three years of effort. Your organization, 
which is brilliantly led by Dr. John R. Mott, is worthy of all confidence, and, 
if ade(7uately supported by the public, as doubtless it will be, will do wonderful 
work. We need not assure your workers that in England and at the front we 
shall esteem it a high privilege to work side by side with those who may come 
over from America to help the soldiers of the Allies, the wounded and the 
prisoners of war. 



"My advice to the American public is to have absolute confidence in the 
men at the head of the American movement, to give all that they ask for and 
especially to begin giving very promptly so that the work may start at once. 

"Now is not too soon even for you in the United States to begin thinking 
of that enormous problem of what is to happen after the war. Everything 
possible must be done to keep the men from being let down as soon as they 
are discharged from the army for any cause. 

"We do not force religion on the men. We have prayer meetings, but 
Tommy does not always crowd them to suffocation. That doesn't matter. 
Anything that will help him to keep his ideals alive in such times of stress as 
these is very much worth while. It has been truly said since this war began 
and our armies crossed the Channel that 'England's future lies in France.' 
Your future will lie with the men in your army, too, for they will be your 
young men of greatest virility. 

Y. M. G. A.'s Work to Look After Minds and Morals 

"No effort can be too great, no expense too mighty, which will serve to 
preserve them mentally, morally or physically. Your wonderful doctors and 
self-sacrificing nurses will do everything they can, we all are sure, to look 
after their health, and the welfare of their minds and morals will be to a con- 
siderable extent the affair of organizations like the Young Men's Christian 
Association. 

"I have said that we do not emphasize religious work. That does not 
mean that we ever forget the third word of our name. We have given away 
tens of thousands of Testaments, for which the men ask eagerly ; many hundreds 
of thousands of carefully prepared leaflets, which have started many men to 
careful and constructive thinking, and an unrecorded but immense number of 
sermons have been preached to the soldiers at the front and elsewhere by our 
workers. 




"Perhaps the most interesting experiences that iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiininn"'— - _ 

in the little wooden huts back of the firing line, w 021 i**"'' ^ ^ 

ilege to work with the shrapnel helmeted, mud-cakea men from the trenches, 
who have left the shadow of death for a few moments, knowing full well that 
they soon must enter it again. 

"The parsons at the counter who stand passing out Testaments to those 
who wish them while tea is being served nearby can learn more in ten minutes 
than they might learn in ten years at their home churches. The men to whom 
they speak of soul welfare are likely to listen with keen appreciation, for 
frequently men's souls are passing in the very trenches which they have 
just left and to which they must return even as they talk. 

The Association as Essential as Ammunition 

"I know fighting men who think the Y. M. C. A. as essential as ammu- 
nition to the winning of the war. Hundreds of British churches have sent 
their pastors to the firing line, and there is an exhilaration in this act of sac- 
rifice. Always the congregation which has done so, will in some way keep up 
church work during the absence of the minister. 

"Not the least important work done by the Y. M. C. A. is that which it 
has undertaken of escorting and caring for the friends of desperately wounded 
men who go to the front hospitals to see their dear ones, sometimes to find 
them dying or even dead. When an official notice is sent to a family that one 
or more of its members are to be permitted to visit the front for such a melan- 
choly purpose the Y. M. C. A. is simultaneously notified. 

"When the relatives arrive in France the organization at once takes care 
of them and usually sees to it that they are comfortable on the trip across 
the Channel. It may be that we may have to motor them for as much as a hun- 
dred miles from the coast port to the place where their dear one is lying, and 
we regard them as our guests, supplying them even with lodgings at our hostels 
during the whole of their stay in France. 

Arrange Meetings of the Wounded and Their Friends 

"In other words, we are the liaison officers who arrange the meetings be- 
tween the wounded and their friends. It is sometimes a heartrending task, but 
it is never one which we are not glad to perform. 

"I think it is safe to say that there never is a time when less than 250 
friends of wounded men are staying at our hostels in France. Many have 
reached their loved ones just in time to say farewell. One father arrived 
when we thought he would be too late and was taken to his boy's bedside after 
the lad had become unconscious. 

"But the sound of the loved voice roused the sufferer and he raised himself 
in bed to our amazement, crying, 'Hello, dad!' His father took him in his arms 
just in time to keep him from falling back upon his pillow, dead. 

"One word more about the purely religious work. Among those engaged 
in it are the most celebrated evangelists in the country. John MacNeill, Gypsy 
Smith, Sherwood Eddy, a Yale man, of whom I have spoken before, and many 
others work with us. Thousands of clergymen go into our huts to perform the 
routine work of helpers, serving coffee, for example, sweeping floors, preach- 
ing the faith by service as well as by word of mouth." 

Reprinted from the New York Sun, 

Series T-6 ^ 



'Biiiiiili • 

021 Uo 11S 7 



HoUinger Corp. 



